[Anchor]

A dramatic gold medal has been won in Asian Games taekwondo. Today (October 3), Song Da-bin, the only South Korean to reach the finals, defeated her Chinese opponent with a golden kick.

Reporter Yu Byeongmin is on-site.

[Reporter]

The Kyorugi national team, which fell into shock after capturing only two bronze medals yesterday, faced another difficult journey on the final day today.

Kim Yu-jin, the Paris Olympic gold medalist in the women's 57kg division, was eliminated in the quarterfinals, while Moon Jin-ho in the men's 68kg division and Kang Sang-hyun in the men's over-80kg division both lost in the semifinals, settling for bronze medals.

Amidst the crisis of facing an unprecedented zero-gold-medal campaign, Song Da-bin soared in the women's over-67kg division.

Having reached the final with dominant 2-0 victories in every match from the round of 16 to the semifinals, Song faced China's Wu Yuanzhe, a towering opponent standing 190 cm tall—7 cm taller than Song. Song successfully seized the initiative from the first round with aggressive attacks.

Although she dropped the second round to Wu's counterattacks, Song pulled ahead by landing precise strikes in the final third round and successfully defended against Wu's head attacks until the very end to finally secure the gold medal.

As her victory was confirmed, Song embraced her coach in celebration and basked in the joy while waving the Taegeukgi, the South Korean flag.

[Song Da-bin / National Taekwondo Kyorugi Athlete: I am so happy and deeply moved to face this dream-come-true moment in person. Mom! Dad! I won first place! What should I do?]

Having harvested gold medals without a single exception since the 1986 Seoul Asian Games where taekwondo first became an official event, the Kyorugi national team narrowly salvaged the pride of the martial art's birthplace by escaping the humiliation of its first-ever zero-gold crisis thanks to Song's golden kick.

Though it averted an unprecedented Kyorugi gold-less disaster, painful preparations by South Korean taekwondo will be necessary for the Los Angeles Olympics two years from now.

(Video by Choi Dae-woong | Video Editing by Kim Jun-hee | Design by Jeon Yu-geun)